as changed greatly." She put on a
knowing look: "I think it would be better if he still lived at home,
ma'am."

Kate stared at her. What did she suspect? What did she know? Did she
really know anything? Doubts rose in her mind, and then came the
certainty: this girl was innocent, otherwise she would not have been
able to speak like that. Even the most artful person could not look so
ingenuous. And she had also confessed quite of her own accord that she
had lately written to Wolfgang--no, this girl was not so bad, it
must be another one with fair hair. But where was she to look for
her?--where find Wolfgang?

And holding out both her hands to the girl as though she were
begging her pardon, she said in a voice full of misery: "But don't you
know anything? Have you no idea whatever where he might be? It was two
days yesterday since he went away--since he disappeared--disappeared
entirely, his landlady does not know where."

"Disappeared entirely--two days ago?" Frida opened her eyes
wide.

"Yes, I've just told you so. That's why I am asking you. He has
disappeared, quite disappeared."

A furious impatience took possession of his mother and at the same
time the full understanding of her painful position. She put her hands
before her face and groaned aloud.

Frau Laemke and her daughter exchanged glances full of compassion.
Frida turned pale, then red, it seemed as if she were about to say
something, but she kept silent nevertheless.

"But he's not bad, no, he's not bad," whispered Frau Laemke.

"Who says that he's bad?" Kate started up, letting her hands fall
from before her face. All the misery she had endured during
those long years and the hopelessness of it all lay in her voice as she
added: "He's been led astray, he has gone astray--he's lost, lost!"

Frida wept aloud. "Oh, don't say that," she cried. "He'll come back
again, he's sure to come back. If only I--" she hesitated and frowned
as she pondered--"knew for certain."

"Help me! Oh, can't you help me?"

Frau Laemke clasped her hands when she heard the poor woman's cry of
"Help me!" and trembled with excitement: how terrible if a mother has
to live to see her child do such things, the child she has brought into
the world with such pain. Forgetting the respect with which she always
regarded Kate she tottered up to her and grasped her cold hand as it
hung at her side: "Oh dear, oh dear, I am so grieved, so terribly
grieved. But calm yourself. You know